“Ah!” she exclaims, with a bounce that shakes the mattress. “Speaking of scary dates, I almost forgot what I wanted to tell you ... although I don’t know if I should ...”
“Too late to back out now.” I close the laptop, because it’s clear I’m done for the evening. “Do tell.”
“Charles told me that Michael had a spicy date with Pompilia yesterday.”
“Okay, I don’t think I want to hear the rest,” I announce, throwing my hands up. “Keep me out of sordid hardcore romps.”
“What do you mean hardcore romps? You can’t even imagine what happened to him, poor thing,” she insists. “So, Pompilia, as soon as she saw Michael, jumped on him and proceeded to practice her specialty.”
“So far, I certainly wouldn’t describe him as a ‘poor thing.’” On the contrary. Honestly, I’m also a little annoyed. “He must have enjoyed his ‘mic check.’”
“Well, unfortunately, Pompilia had eaten her famous spicy tomato soup just before her performance.” Giada winks at me, as if to say the best part of the story is yet to come. “The result? The oral exam irritated Michael’s nether regions to the extent that he’s now lying in bed with an ice pack in his underwear.”
So that’s why we haven’t seen him all day. “Karma’s real!” I exclaim with a treacherous hint of glee.
“Don’t you feel the slightest bit of guilt? You’re the one who inflicted these three terrible dates on him!” Giada asks.
“I may have forced the dates on him, but I certainly didn’t push Pompilia’s open mouth on him.”
“What do you care what they did or didn’t do?”
“I don’t.” Really, I don’t care . . . but . . .
“Then put an end to this feud. Remember he’s the one managing the sale of the estate. If you want them to sell it to you, tone down your animosity and start talking to him like a friend you’ve known for ten years.”
It pains me to admit it, but Giada’s right. “Did Mamma make pizza tonight?” I ask her.
“Like every Monday: one with sausage; one with ham, mushrooms, and artichokes and a white one with bacon.”
Okay, let’s do this. I get out of bed and pull on my All Stars. “Perfect, that ham, mushroom, and artichoke is mine,” I say, and I head toward the villa to get the hot pan.
23
Michael
Lying in a bed, in pain, naked, with a bag of diced frozen vegetables on my crotch, I stare at the canopy, wondering what I’ve done to deserve this.
I’d love to be Googling the possible consequences of this incident on my genitals, but with no Wi-Fi, I can’t even self-diagnose any terminal complications.
Two knocks on the door snap me out of my catastrophizing. “Come in,” I say, pulling the sheet up to my waist.
“May I?” Elisa peeks through the crack. “I’ve come in peace.”
She enters the room holding a pan covered with a tea towel. “Have you by any chance hidden a knife so you can finish me off down there?” I ask.
“No.” She lifts a corner of the white linen towel and a sublime aroma fills the air. “We had a pizza date pending, if I remember correctly: ham, mushroom, and artichoke. Is it still your favorite?”
Just the smell of it opens up a chasm of memories: Here at Le Giuggiole, pizza Mondays were sacred. Mariana baked an industrial quantity of pizzas in the large wood-fired oven in the kitchen, and we rascals polished them off while holed up in a tent pitched in the garden.We’d camp out, eight of us in a four-person tent, and stay up until morning playing Uno.
“As long as I have teeth to eat it,” I reply. I move over to my left and motion for her to sit on the free half of the bed.
“Since you can’t go to the pizzeria in your state, I brought the pizzeria to you.”
“Ah, did you hear ...?” I ask her sheepishly.
“Yes. No detail spared.”
Damn. “So are we good now?” I ask her.
